Tag Archives: sailing

Baguette search day #6

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Last full day of core exercise.   The swell found us or did we find the swell?  

We have been doing the time warp all day long.  

It’s just a jump to the left

And step to the right

With your hands on the boat

Lock your knees in tight.. 

But its the floor you trust

Is driving you insane

Let’s do the Timewarp again. .. and again and again.

For every 3 meter wave that catches you off guard.

Finally found a rhythm that was semi-comfortable, and boat at a decent pace to arrive at daybreak the following morning.   There is a lot of charts and talk that its well marked and lit, can easily be done in the dark.  If the sea wasn’t as angry I imagine we would go that route, but with the sea state and possibly the swell at the pass, I just want to have a look and make sure there are no standing waves or big current coming out as we will be a few hours after slack tide when we arrive in the daylight.  

The Rocky Horror exercise routine was partially attributed to mother nature trying to make up for neptunes tempertantrum.  Neptune would make a bunch of racket and stir up the waves that splash and cover sugar shack completely..  Seemed like there was water falls at from every horizontal surface at points during the day.  The new solar panels were a water feature, salt water creating a curtain of water right in to the dinghy.   Mother nature must have felt sorry for us and promptly rinsed it off with drive thru boat wash, and then showed us she still cared with many colorful signs. 

Reward or Apology?

Then it got to be a competition, I think neptune must have summoned up some siblings and started make waves from a couple directions at once.  

Spicy cajun pasta for dinner, double checked the freezer we have indeed exhausted all the swine related products. My favorite is to show the bio officers the Trader Joe’s veggie chorizo, that always confuses everyone.   Looks like pork but…  🙂 

All good, another 12-15hrs and it’ll be time to find a cold beverage, a hot shower, and a bed that doesn’t try and throw you like an 8 second bull, and of course the long awaited fresh baguette.  

Baguette search day #3

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Yay spinnaker day.

Wind gods were smiling on us. We pulled out our medium spinnaker and flew it all day long. Such a nice comfortable ride when the kites come out to play.

Well, it wasn’t without drama, cause nothing ever is. I rigged it all up went to hoist the sock and looked and felt wrong, brought it down. Felt like it was twisted or in the sock backwards. Re tied and re tried, still wasn’t right. A few more goes, finally opened it up and yup all twisted up, must have had a hard take down on our way to New Zealand and I forgot about it. So now it’s flying all twisted up, bring it back down, but at least this time I could see where the twist was so, untie and re-worked the lines and voila success at last. Beautiful day.

Normally when we fly a spinnaker it’s always babysitting to make sure the wind cooperates and there are no squalls nearby. Today the skies were overcast and uniform so we were able to relax and let it fly.

We took it down just before the radio check in, they asked what happened to our boat speed.. 😉 we were busy taking a sail down that is the size of a 2000 sq foot house. Slight exaggeration 170m2 is about 1800 sq feet, I take liberties to exaggerate bad math skills. During the radio check in, wouldn’t ya know it a 25 knot rain spritz came along. Perfect timing.

Bbq pulled pork on a bagel for dinner, redneck kosher.

Dark night lots of clouds and the moon doesn’t come out till nearly midnight.

All well on board, not our fastest passage but we are knocking off the miles, under 600 miles to go.

Fingers crossed we can fly again tomorrow but probably not.

Ocean Days and Starry Nights: Passage NZ to New Cal

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After patiently waiting (and occasionally refreshing weather models like it’s a full-time job), we are finally ready to start our passage from New Zealand to New Caledonia.

A good weather window has opened, and it’s time to go make use of it—heading out for 6–7 days of beautiful ocean sailing, starry nights, and the kind of quiet horizon that reminds you why you came to sea in the first place.

We’ve paused our scheduled blog posts for the duration of the passage.

Instead, Matt will be doing some “live blogging” along the way—real-time updates from the motion, the miles, and whatever the ocean decides to serve up.

Scheduled posts will resume on 16 June 2026, once we’re back in range of reliable internet (and slightly more stable footing).

In the meantime, you can follow our journey by heading to our website homepage, clicking “Current Location”, and then following the PredictWind link to track our progress across the blue.

Thank you for the continued support, messages, and encouragement—it means a lot to have you following along with our adventures aboard Sugar Shack.

Fair winds, and see you on the other side of the ocean.